Step 8 and 9 and 10...Part 5 in the series.

Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

Well, here it comes. I had to make a list of all the people that I had harmed and had to make nice with them. You mean to tell me that I have to go and apologize to them?? Yes I do and I did. This was a hard step to do as well. I had to humble myself to another person and admit that I was wrong and sorry for what I had done. But wait What if I was not willing to go and talk to them or to tell them I was sorry? What if they had moved on and lost touch? What if they were dead? What if they were alive and they did not know that I did something to harm them? That is where Step 9 comes in; Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Step 8 was part of it, but Step 9 was an action step. So say that you were dating a person and you cheated on them but they did not know about it. According to Step 8, you need to make amends to them. Step 9 says to do it, but not to harm or injure them. So would telling your girlfriend that you cheated harm her? Yes it would. So this is where a “Living Amends” comes in. The amends process in this instance was for you to not do the action anymore, to not cheat on her and thus, you make amends for the offending action.If someone had moved on or died, it would be impossible to talk to them, so you can write a letter, read it, and then destroy it. You have to make every possible means to contact that person, but this is a way of doing it.

One person that I held resentment to was a very close friend. I went to talk to this person and their reaction was very indifferent to me. Some people will not want to talk to you about what you did or they did, but you will have made the effort and that is the main objective. Some people will be glad that you wanted to talk to them and will be very receptive about the issue. But the main thing is that you will have made the effort on your part. Remember you can’t control other people’s actions, only your own with the help of God.

This process does not have a time limit set for it. It can take some time to complete, but it needs to be done to get all the mess that you have created in your life cleaned out. You have heard of Spring Cleaning? Just think of this like that. You are getting out all of the old BS that has built up over a period of time that has been eating at your soul. When you get some of this off your chest, you will feel so much better, I sure did.

After having done this step, you will move on to Step 10 - Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. You will have to become a more analytical person about your actions and become aware of how you interact with other people. If you come across like an asshole to a person, look at why that happened and then go to them and apologize for that act. I had to the other night at work. I offended a lady and she made mention to a coworker about it. I had to suck it up and go and talk to her and make amends or apologize for it. She was like thank you. So, it works.

I am going to stop here. I am not ready to discuss the next step with you as it is a very hard one to do and these last 2 steps are a mouthful to comprehend and work on. God Bless and have a wonderful evening or day depending where you live…



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